Israel Regresses By Erecting An Apartheid Wall

Stop the Wall: PENGON Launches the Apartheid Wall Campaign

Friday, December 27 2002 @ 10:09 PM GMT

"The prospects of a completed wall are horrific, and will translate into
the confiscation and annexation of some 10% of the West Bank .."

By Jamaal Jumaa

Contrary to worldwide news reports, the Wall (also referred to as the
"fence" or "security fence") which Israel is currently building in the
northeast of the West Bank, as well as in the Bethlehem and Jerusalem
areas, will not mark the 1967 border, also known as the Green Line.
Rather, amidst some of the most fertile land in Palestine, this latest
unilateral offensive will be a further exercise in Israel's annexation
of lands, destruction of agriculture and property, and violation of
human rights.
The construction and destruction revolving around the Apartheid Wall
is to move full-force in the coming months and the Wall could be
completed in less than one year. The prospects of a completed wall are
horrific, and will translate into the confiscation and annexation of
some 10% of the West Bank, the destruction of hundreds of thousands of
dunums of farmland including the uprooting of hundreds of thousands of
trees, the demolition of homes, and the tragic "advancement" of the
closure and siege policy that will leave thousands of families landless,
jobless, hungry, and hopeless. The image of cities and villages
encircled by checkpoints, by-pass roads, and settlements is now being
accompanied by an 8-meter high concrete wall with trenches, electric
fences, sensors, cameras, and armed watchtowers.
The Apartheid Wall Campaign was born out of an October 2, 2002,
meeting of the Palestinian Environmental NGOs Network (PENGON) General
Assembly, where it was decided that PENGON, with the support of its
member organizations, must make the Wall a priority of its work; and,
stating clearly that successful efforts on behalf of the Wall must be
joint and widespread, both in local efforts, and in international
advocacy.
PENGON counts 21 member organizations-the majority of West Bank and
Gaza environmental organizations-which deal with a variety of
environmental issues including land protection and development, water,
agriculture, pollution, health, sustainable development, biodiversity,
and cultural heritage. PENGON was born out of a call at the start of
this Intifada to ensure coordinated and effective efforts among NGOs to
deal with the environmental consequences of Occupation and the increased
Israeli (military, settlements, industrial) assaults on life and land in
the Occupied Territories.
The Campaign itself sees its aim as two fold: on the one hand, to
work and mobilize against the Wall and its immediate and expected
consequences to environment and human rights; and on the other hand, to
shed light on the expanding stranglehold of the Occupation, marked by
checkpoints, closures, siege, settlements, and the Wall. The larger
context is the underlying motivation behind the Campaign. The Campaign
looks to integrate local needs and efforts with information collection
and international advocacy. Among other things, the Apartheid Wall
Campaign organizes visits to the northern West Bank areas affected by
the Wall.
Local councils, farmers unions, and other grassroots organizations
have also formally joined the Campaign. In addition, the first and
second Emergency Centers for the Campaign have already been established
in the Tulkarem and Qalqiliya areas where information collection,
meetings among the communities and with local and international
solidarity groups, social mobilization coordination, and public and
legal services are to take place in relation to the Wall. The third
Emergency Center is currently being established in Jenin. To date, the
Campaign is overwhelmingly a volunteer effort.
The first phase of the Apartheid Wall is currently taking place in
the northern West Bank, where the Apartheid Wall will reach an
approximate length of 115km. Fifteen villages will be trapped between
the Wall and the Green Line, while the built-up (residential) areas of
at least 15 villages will be east of the Apartheid Wall with a
significant portion of their lands on the other side. The city of
Qalqiliya, which is the urban center for the entire area, will be
completely encircled by the Apartheid Wall. In addition, approximately
30 groundwater wells which have a total discharge of 4 million cubic
meters per year (4 MCM/year) will be out of bounds, having been
separated by the Wall from the villages depending on them, meaning even
further Israeli control over Palestinian water resources. Falamya, for
example, is to loose its main source of water.
The reference in the international media to a "fence" being placed
to separate the "two sides" should be seen more as a cynical,
unrepresentative use of terms than any real reflection of the Wall
itself, both in its massive physical structure and its implications on
the lives of tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of people. The
separation rhetoric, which should remind everyone of the Afrikaans word
for separation--"Apartheid"--is not a reflection of real geographic or a
historic physical divide between two peoples, but rather is reference to
Israel's continued campaign of forcible, unilateral separation and
expulsion plans that disregard national or economic sovereignty for
Palestinians. The Wall just furthers the "bantustanization" of the West
Bank into hundreds of small, dependent entities that cannot sustain
themselves and that are more akin to small, disconnected open-air
prisons surrounded by Israeli military checkpoints and settlements, than
anything else.

To contact the Campaign, and for more details about the Apartheid Wall,
including Report #1, please visit http://www.pengon.org or write the
Campaign/PENGON at outreach [at] pengon.org.

Copyright © 2002 Palestine Chronicle